A Monte Carlo filtering application for systematic sensitivity analysis of computable general equilibrium results

The views expressed are purely those of the authors and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission or the University of Aberdeen. The authors would like to thank Maria Espinosa, Sergio Gomez y Paloma, three reviewers and the editor for valuable comments, and Javier Alba (and the IPTS-IT department) for technical assistance.Peer reviewedPostprin

An Ex-ante Rural/Urban Analysis of Common Agricultural Policy Options

Agricultural and Food Policy,

Rural-urban social accounting matrixes for modelling the impact of rural development policies in the EU

This report complements previous work and builds NUTS3 SAMs for twelve regions, following a careful approach, that we call the expert approach. This report investigates the results of this approach by running some simple policy simulations and providing the structural descriptions of these regions. Further, this report aims at producing testing a more automatic approach to the construction of NUTS3 SAMs, to a view of reducing the necessary time and data requirements. Using several examples, this report examines whether such automatic approach can provide reliable SAMs at NUTS3 level. It finally draws conclusions as to the usefulness of both approaches in providing tools for further policy analysis in the field of rural development policy analysisJRC.J.4-Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Econom

The role of the Eurasian wheat belt to regional and global food security

Food security remains to be a major societal concern. In the light of the current expectations of population growth, world food production has to be massively increased to sustain the associated food demand rise. While agricultural productivity was rising during recent decades in the US, Europe and also in some developing countries, the corresponding growth rates lately appeared to be slowing down. In fact, the only world region with a significant amount of arable land, which currently is not under cultivation and which at the same time is, moreover, experiencing rising productivity figures, is the so called 'Eurasian wheat belt', comprising of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and the Central Asian countries, namely Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kirgizstan. In this light, the Joint Research Centre and the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development organized a thematic workshop, held during 20 – 22 May 2014 in Istanbul/Turkey, set up to bring experts on the matter together and to discuss to what extent these countries could play a role for regional and international food security. Following the workshop analysis and discussion, this report provides a comprehensive technical overview of the wheat production, and the main factors to achieve full production potential across the Eurasian wheat belt with regards to national, regional and global issues of cereal supply and food security in evolving global markets. It reviews key horizontal issues, such as land policy, credit and finance, privatization, farm structures, social consequences of transition, environmental challenges, against the backdrop of agrarian reforms implemented during the transition period. In addition the report explores production potential and corresponding institutional and policy restrictions in a series of Eurasian countries. Finally, the report closes with expert opined policy-relevant conclusions as a basis for policy suggestions and recommendations.JRC.J.4-Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Econom

An Ex-Ante Assessment of CAP Income Stabilisation Payments using a Farm Household Model

Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reforms over the last two decades have increased the sensitivity of EU farm incomes to market fluctuations. Following legal proposals from the European Commission, an income stabilisation tool may be introduced during the 2014-2020 period. From a theoretical perspective, it is not possible to evaluate a priori how farmers will actually respond in terms of input and output allocation to such measures and therefore what the impacts on farm income will be. This paper assesses the potential implementation of these payments using a farm household model calibrated to French cereal farms

The 474-Kilobase-Pair Complete Genome Sequence of CeV-01B, a Virus Infecting Haptolina (Chrysochromulina) ericina(Prymnesiophyceae)

We report the complete genome sequence of CeV-01B, a large double-stranded DNA virus infecting the unicellular marine phytoplankton Haptolina (formerly Chrysochromulina) ericina. CeV-01B and its closest relative Phaeocystis globosa virus define an emerging subclade of the Megaviridae family with smaller genomes and particles than the originally described giant Mimiviridae infecting Acanthamoeba

Non-homogenous gamma process: Application to SiC MOSFET threshold voltage instability

International audienceThe accelerated degradation tests provide the opportunity to assess the reliability of an electronic component for which only parametric degradation is observable. In the case of the silicon carbide MOSFETs, this approach makes it possible to study the impact of the threshold voltage phenomenon on the reliability of the devices. During the High Temperature Gate Bias tests, we have carried out, the threshold voltage of the ten devices under test have been monitored and their degradation modeled using a non-homogeneous Gamma process. The estimation of the degradation process parameters enable to estimate the distribution of the first hitting time to a degradation threshold which is considered as a failure criterion. Lastly, a criterion proposed by Tseng and Yu [1] has been used to provide a metric to stop these ageing tests while having relevant reliability data

Accelerated degradation data of SiC MOSFETs for lifetime and Remaining Useful Life assessment

International audienceThe phenomenon of threshold voltage instability has been reported to be a critical issue for the first generation of commercial SiC MOSFETs. For aeronautic mission profile, the long term reliability of such device has to be estimated prior to any integration. As far as the author knows, this paper proposes one of the first attempts to use a non-homogeneous gamma process to model the threshold voltage degradation of a commercial SiC MOSFET. Such approach allows evaluating the time to failure as well as it distribution thanks to the proposed Acceleration degradation testing methodology. All the data collected during the ageing tests will be used to model an acceleration factor and to extrapolate the Time-To-Failure in a given application. Ultimately, the use of gamma process to evaluate the Remaining Useful Life of electronic component is described as a first step toward prognostic of Remaining Useful Life in embedded power electronics